Guest post by Steven Goddard
Click for a larger map – ice extent overlay provided by Catlin KML file, annotated map by Anthony Watts from data provided by the Catlin Arctic Survey
According to the people who rescued Pen Hadow from his earlier polar near-misadventure in 2003, the latest safe date for recovering people from the North Pole is April 30. The team is currently 683 km away from the pole, which means that they would need to cover 32km per day – an increase of 5X over their average rate so far. That might prove difficult with an exhausted, hypothermic, frostbitten team walking over broken ice and dragging heavy equipment at -34C.
May 28, 2003
Steve Penikett, of Kenn Borek Air, based in Calgary, which completed the mission, said: “I wish it hadn’t taken place at this time of the year. This is the latest we have ever done a pick-up. Landing on the North Pole at this time of the year is not the brightest thing people can do because of the weather and ice conditions.
“People are at risk – the ice breaks and it shouldn’t really happen. No one should expect to be picked up from there later than 30 April … Going to the Pole this time of the year is a bit stupid and you put a lot of people’s lives at risk. If you are going to put yourself into a spot like this … it really does need to be thought through.”
h/t to Pkatt for finding this information. More from Anthony and The Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1136134.ece
May 26, 2003
Polar Pen waits for new airlift as temperature falls
THE temperature at the North Pole has plummeted to minus 25C as the explorer Pen Hadow ekes out his meagre food rations waiting for clouds to clear so he can be airlifted back to civilisation.
After one attempt to pick him up failed, a new plan has been hatched to improve the chances of a successful recovery by aircraft in worsening Arctic weather conditions. Visibility has diminished so far at Hadow’s base camp at Eureka in Canada that pilots could not take off to fly to the pole even if it were safe to land.
As of today, the Catlin web site is showing
| Total distance travelled | 241.13 | km |
|---|---|---|
| Average daily distance | 5.88 | km |
| Estimated distance to North Pole | 683.39 | km |
| Time on ICE | 41 | days |
This is interesting because they also say :
As we approach the half way point of the expedition, the Ice Team are currently just 10 miles below the 85°N line of latitude. During the time Pen, Ann and Martin have been on expedition, the ice has been particularly dynamic, with refrozen leads and huge pressure ridges experienced on a daily basis. The team have managed to navigate their way around open water, and so far have not had to don their immersion suits and swim.
In this next stage of the expedition, we are starting to see the temperature rise from its recent -35C to -45C, thereby allowing the team to focus on something other than sheer survival. However, from satellite pictures we receive in the Ops Room, we can see that once the team cross the 85th degree of latitude, the condition of the ice deteriorates rapidly. Large fissures of open water running east to west for several hundred miles currently scar the ice imagery. So, whilst on the one hand the weather conditions should start to improve, on the other hand the team will now face the new challenge of navigating stretches of open water. So, it is with immersion suits and flotation devices ready that the next phase of the expedition begins.
They are only a little more than 1/4th of the way to the North Pole. Does this imply that they are not planning on completing their North Pole trek?
David S. Yes, we have given up guns – they are for killing after all. What we would do when confronted by a bear (or anything else that needs shooting) is to tell them in the strongest possible terms to go away. If that doesn’t work then we send in a delegation of cross-party members (people of diffferent political groups) to explain why they need to go away. If that doesn’t work then we send in the SAS http://www.eliteukforces.info/special-air-service/ That always seems to work a treat!
Has anyone addressed the issue of how the expedition is selecting their sites for drilling and gathering their data? I couldn’t find anything on their website other than a bit on how they selected / planned their route, but nothing that indicates that they prospectively selected sampling locations, randomly or otherwise. Am I correct to conclude that they are basically eyeballing locations along their pre-planned route, and deciding on the spot whether or not to “drill here, drill now”, or have I missed something? This seems like a critical question since they leave themselves open to accusations of cherry picking sites.
Sandy (06:33:48) : Go to Kenn Borak Air’s site for a photo of a Turbo-DC-3 http://www.borekair.com/index.php?cat=gallery The company has two Turbo-DC-3s; tail ‘numbers’ C-FMKB and C-FQHF may or may not be the right ones.
Somewhat OT – back in 1969 I sat in the crew -room and watched the “small step for a man and a giant leap for mankind” on TV and then picked up my gear and walked out to a waiting Pratt & Whitney-powered DC-3, a design dating from 1935. Talk about a generation gap!
The natural end result of the AGW-Gaia green religion.
“The woman’s cardigan hangs from the polar bear’s jaws after the attack”
…-
“Pictured: Shocking moment polar bear attacks woman who climbed into zoo enclosure
This is the terrifying moment a woman was attacked by a polar bear after jumping into its zoo enclosure.
The 32-year-old leapt over bars at Berlin Zoo during the bears’ feeding time yesterday.
Despite six zookeepers’ efforts to distract the four predators kept in the enclosure, the woman was bitten several times on her arms and legs.”
urlm.in/cbwd
bill (08:09:59) asked:
“Why doesn’t the navy publish their thickness records if they have them – I have not
seen recent results?”
In broad strokes, we discourage the military from serving any civilian need. It’s inappropriate. Even when military resources are the only way to rescue someone, we insert them only with much careful bowing & explaining. Even though it can seem superficially ‘obvious’ for the military to contribute what they can, it is in fact fraught with grave social dangers, and we don’t generally do it.
More specifically, the US is in competition with the Russian Navy … who are particularly sensitive to activities in the Arctic Ocean. It is unprofessional to reveal the activity or capability of our Navy, to them. (The Royal British Navy like to play, too, but they don’t have nearly as many boats.)
But also bear in mind, we can measure ice thickness and its salt content (revealing age) from airplanes, using radar. Have, for many decades:
==========
United States Patent: 3665466 [filed 1970]
“Determination of Ice Thickness”
Abstract
“The thickness of sea ice is measured using a radar technique with radio frequency energy having frequency in the range between a frequency below 2000 MHZ and a frequency above 4000 MHZ. The penetration of radio frequency energy transmitted from above the ice and reflected by the ice or the water below it depends on the frequency of the energy. The frequency may be swept over the above range and the travel time of reflected energy recorded to obtain a measure of the salt concentration in ice.”
Background of the Invention
“The determination of the thickness of ice has recently assumed considerable importance in view of the passage of commercial vessels into Arctic and Antarctic regions where the sea is covered with a layer of ice either permanently or for extended periods during the year. In the Northwest Passage between the Arctic islands of Canada for example, a ship may be able to break through the ice provided that it is not excessively thick and provided also that the ice, if thick, is “old ice”; i.e., ice that has progressively accumulated over a period of years. It has been found that “old ice” becomes relatively hard and brittle and is much easier to break than is ice of relatively recent origin. Also, the presence of ice ridges becomes important in planning the travel path of a vessel inasmuch as they can present special problems to the captain of a vessel intent upon breaking through the ridge. It is desirable therefore to be able to quickly and accurately measure the thickness of the ice over a body of water and also to determine whether the ice is of relatively recent formation or whether it is “old ice”.”
==========
It is absurd to give credence to any claim or suggestion that we or anyone is engaged in critical efforts to learn the thickness of Arctic Ocean ice. We may as well earnestly discuss the feasibility of controlling underarm odor.
Obviously, submarines can determine the thickness of ice over them (it is necessary to surface before firing missiles…), and they gather a great deal of other valuable information (at especially high resolution) while they are at it. But airplanes can also measure ice thickness, and ice salinity: they can do so very quickly, and repeatedly (tho perhaps with lower resolution, and fewer ancillary data).
It is normal for all manner of large aircraft travelling to & from North America and Europe/Central-Western Asia, to fly a course across the north polar icecap. It is the conventional “great circle route”. With the aerial measurement of ice using radar being literally your Grandpa’s technology, and the military making very large numbers of flights over the pole, we have every opportunity to monitor ice conditions. Since there are many US Patents on this topic, other than the one I cite, there is no reason that the civilian sector could not also do this – it’s fully public, not secret/classified technology.
It really seems like simple buffoonery, a Three Stooges vaudeville act, to accede to the assumption that we (and all important global players) do not already know the Arctic ice thickness in detail (from both above & below), and update its status every few days.
(The Army Arctic Ice-Buoy system, discussed here on WUWT several times, is most likely not installed primarily to track ice thickness, but to monitor icepack movement(s), over both short & extended time periods.)
Phil. (07:10:18) :
Yes these teams are experiencing similar problems to the Catlin group.
But they are pushing on, they are attempting to dry out their sleeping bags, not flying in new ones along with bacon sandwiches.
The point was that “thinning ice” will be the excuse for the Catlin trio not getting to the North Pole. The media will go to town on this “Global Warming stops Polar Explorers reaching North Pole.” The media will ram home, over and over again, that Global Warming stopped the Catlin three. Totally ignoring the fact that other teams succeeded or more correctly will succeed.
Please check out
http://www.catlinarcticsurvey.com/routemap
“The Ice Team members have all reached the North Pole before, so this project is not about getting to the Pole”
Pen and Co are no longer going to the Pole, as they have all been there before.
I thought that they knew that before they started out.
Yet there are others where the conditions are allowing them to ski.
http://www.forwardexpeditions.com/213-day-37-a-skiers-thoughts-4-7.html
“Well today we made a new distance record for ten hours of travel, 11.2 nautical miles. John and I are very pleased. What do we think about while we’re skiing?”
“The follower has a little bit less to think about and can get caught up more in: How’s the snow? This is great skiing. ”
Apart from thin ice, I was also interested to read that John Huston and Tyler Fish had:
“We boosted from 6700 calories to 7500 calories per person per day. And that is in the form of an extra truffle for lunch, more cheese and milk powder at dinnertime and a little other additives.”
Compare that to Catlin:
“Arctic Kitchen Posted by Ann Daniels
Saturday, 11 Apr 2009 12:24
As well as being the expedition’s navigator, Ann Daniels is the Team Cook. The calorie intake of the three explorers is crucial to maintain their energy levels – and they’re each taking on board around 5,500 calories per day.
It’s very important for the team to adopt the healthiest diet possible to support optimum health and fitness throughout the journey”, says CAS Nutritional Adviser Rebecca Amey. “Providing the best balance of nutrients to maintain energy and peak body condition is essential. If just one nutrient is lacking or insufficient then normal bodily functions may begin to breakdown making the expedition more hazardous to health”.
The healthiest diet possible that must be the nuts, dried fruit and chicken dumplings.
One group need 7500 calories and the other need 5500 healthy calories.
Ann reached her lowest point of the expedition so far, when after tending the boiling pans of water for several hours, she realised she had pre-heated the wrong battery and had accidently picked up the dead battery from the previous day. It was a painful and frustrating realisation at the end of a cold morning.
Although this on the face of it seems a trivial mistake, it is getting obvious that Ann is getting to the end of her tether. They have done the right thing by giving her a job that may give some relief from the pitiless cold.
On the plus side, at the end of the day, Ann felt warm enough to take off her sledging jacket when getting into her sleeping bag for the night. This is the first time in the 41 days of the expedition so far that she has felt warm enough for this luxury
I’m concerned Hadow feels so enthusiastic about her well being. She might be looking for any thing other than the relentless pain she has been suffering.
It is MHO that they must have an active monitored temperature gauge of her body heat while she sleeps. If this is a publicity stunt, then it is in poor taste.
DaveCF (09:43:15) :
Freaky! Let’s see, 1935 -> 1969 is 34 years. Apollo 17 was the last and was in 1972. 1972 + 34 -> 2006, so we’ve had a longer period of not being able to put a person on the moon than aviation progressed between 1935 and 1969!
Bummer.
I had a weird climatological experience like that – I finally made the effort to find a granite monument to the year without a summer (1816) and found it on May 17th. The next day while I was cooking breakfast I watched rain change to accumulating snow. That was in 2002. Snow in May is rare, especially by the 17th. It was very hard to shake the feeling that 1816 wasn’t about to replay itself or that I was in the screenplay of a Twilight Zone episode. http://wermenh.com/1816.html
By the way, they are not called bacon sandwiches, they are bacon buttis, pronounced “butt ease”.
Chris D. (09:21:33) :
Has anyone addressed the issue of how the expedition is selecting their sites for drilling and gathering their data?
Hadn’t seen anything, but I did note on a previous post on the Catlin adventure that they made a great to do about taking a hundred or more measurements when their progress was stopped by an expanse of open water. It just seemed rather like data would be skewed by selecting a site near open water where the ice might be thin. But that’s just my skeptic’s alarm sounding.
Getting back to their progress — it seems they’ve been busy getting rested and reorganized since their latest resupply. They’ve actually drifted backwards a couple km since yesterday.
Now I wonder why it is that I’ve got this image in my head of the AGW belief system inspired by the silent film era — Keystone Cops.
“Why doesn’t the navy publish their thickness records if they have them – I have not seen recent results?
Bill”
Quite simple. If the Navy collects data on goose farts, that data will be classified.
JimB
“As you say, it can’t be difficult – it’s a simple navigation exercise for a couple of hunter-killers, perhaps with a specialist sonar device mounted on the conning tower.”
As I said in a the previous post…you can bet your a$$ that the British Navy, the U.S. Navy, the Chinese Navy, and the Russian Navy know a whole lot more about ice thickness/movement than any of the researchers who have been “on the ice”.
It would be considered by any government to be of strategic value, and would be considered classified, likely above the SECRET level.
File it under “Never let your enemey know what you know, or how you know it.”
JimB
I think the expedition was organised by this bloke.
(some more Python)
enduser (08:31:05) :
“I am a graduate student and my Professor is a vehement AGW proponent (and very sharp) and I do not want to get my keister shot off in front of my peers.”
Be careful on the fragmented/solid ice. The arctic at any time of year is moving. Strong currents and winds break off sections them ram them back together, hence the ridges and rubble. You could easily get into a minefield on this.
Stick to the facts would be my advice. There are plenty to back up your story. If he isn’t aware that Antarctic sea ice has grown 3 million km2 over the past 6 weeks, then he’s in the wrong field.
Antarctic sea ice growing fast and above it’s 1979-2000 mean:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg
Global sea ice above the 1979-2000 mean:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
Arctic ice slow to start it’s melt and approaching it’s 1979-2000 mean:
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
To really brush up your background this is an excellent summary:
http://www.john-daly.com/polar/arctic.htm
From NSIDC, a good graphic to show how currents and winds are ejecting huge amounts of polar ice into the North Atlantic:
http://nsidc.org/news/press/2007_seaiceminimum/images/20070822_oldice.gif
Good luck and be prepared.
Actually I doubt that the Catlin team gave a lot of thought to the proper way to pick good places to drill for data. I would guess that you just try to find a fairly level place so that you are on a sheet.
The drill was never intended to be a method of gathering meaningful data, it was brought along for calibrating the radar equipment. The radar equipment would gather data continously. Drilling a few hundred holes in a moving ice sheet over a 500 km track, doesn’t really provide any better resolution than what is already available.
As we approach the half way point of the expedition,…They are only a little more than 1/4th of the way to the North Pole.
The most logical explanation is they are using the GISS algorithm and GCM models to extrapolate lots and lots of future progress based on very little current progress.
Is everyone watching the sea ice extent graph? Ooh, we’re close to highest EVER at this time of year. The BBC say “ever” so I’m going to too!
Arn Riewe (13:43:00) :
“Be careful on the fragmented/solid ice. The arctic at any time of year is moving. Strong currents and winds break off sections them ram them back together, hence the ridges and rubble. You could easily get into a minefield on this.”
Thank you sir, you are very kind.
The Aqua MODIS satellite pic from a few hours ago shows there is a great deal of ice drift and large ice cracks in their way.
This pic is sideways – blue dot is the north pole – click on 250m resolution
http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/realtime/single.php?2009101/crefl2_143.A2009101143500-2009101143959.4km.jpg
The hi res image worth a look
http://www.homerdixon.com/download/arctic_flushing.html
REPLY: yes it is, and I plan to make a new post about it, thanks, Anthony
You may enjoy these also. (I cannot search for the files and link to them as half the interweb thingy seems to be down!)
AMSR-E Sea Ice June 2002-October 2003 89.0GHz Vertical Polarization.
AMSR-E Sea Ice June 2002-October 2003 89.0GHz Polarization Ratio.
These are AVI files created by Alvaro Ivanoff
The HDTV files are large but worth looking at – You can see cracks propagate across half the ice in a matter of days.
Sorry for this but this is also a pretty good avi:
(same problem about providing a link as above)
download the HDTV version of:
Antarctic AMSR Sea Ice
Dr Donald Cavaliere Ocean & Ice Branch NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Visualization Alvaro Ivanoff
Just watch those icebergs dance in the right hand pane!
bill,
That animation is very impressive… not so much ice melt as it is the perfect storm…
Anthony, someone here has a video of the entire earth showing the wind for a year or more.. It seems like it was Steve Keohane or Bill Illis… I wonder if it possibly has 2007-2008 in it…
Mike
bill (17:02:45) :
The hi res image worth a look
http://www.homerdixon.com/download/arctic_flushing.html
REPLY: yes it is, and I plan to make a new post about it, thanks, Anthony
I was impressed with that when I first saw it some time ago, the wholesale breakup of the multiyear ice in the Beaufort sea was very dramatic. If you look at current Quickscat images you can see some of the remnants strewn across north of Alaska, which will doubtless disappear this summer.